[Football] West Ham stadium details

[surrey jim]

Do West Ham benefit from items such as pitch side advertising and merchandising / catering sales?

 

[mona]

Absolutely scandalous. No wonder Dave thought he was a West Ham fan that time. And the Mare of London was saying it was great for the local club. Wrong! That's Leyton Orient. West Ham are more of an Essex club than London now.
The one positive is they'll collect loads of JCLs now which might civilise some of their neanderthal lot. As the rest of us have paid for it, there should be special deals for all away fans.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Yep, it will be interesting to see how much away fans are charged. A tenner would probably be fair.

 

[bhanutz]

Yep, it will be interesting to see how much away fans are charged. A tenner would probably be fair.

As they don't have to pay for stewarding etc it should be free! BTW who pays for the policing?

 

[Acker79]

Has anyone asked West Ham to explain how they think this benefits the taxpayer, or do they just let them claim it does and leave it at that?

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

I genuinely don't see what the problem is with West Ham here? You would expect them to try and get the best deal that they could for their club. If it was us, none of us would be upset that we were paying a small amount

Over the course of the lease they will pay about £250million for it. It would be interesting to see the stats on how much clubs pay for stadia and subsequently how long they stay in them. Would this be comparable? If so, this is not too dissimilar from that of a long term bank loan

In addition, the only people that I think should have any portion of blame are the planners/designers from the Olympics. They knew at the time that the most likely future tenant would be a football club yet refused to make something that could easily be converted. They have wasted the money.

I think calling her shady Karen Brady is a little harsh seeing as she has actually done exactly what we would want Paul B to.

As for benefiting the tax payer - at least this way some money is being clawed back rather than the stadium lie empty

 

[bhanutz]

I genuinely don't see what the problem is with West Ham here? You would expect them to try and get the best deal that they could for their club. If it was us, none of us would be upset that we were paying a small amount

Over the course of the lease they will pay about £250million for it. It would be interesting to see the stats on how much clubs pay for stadia and subsequently how long they stay in them. Would this be comparable? If so, this is not too dissimilar from that of a long term bank loan

In addition, the only people that I think should have any portion of blame are the planners/designers from the Olympics. They knew at the time that the most likely future tenant would be a football club yet refused to make something that could easily be converted. They have wasted the money.

I think calling her shady Karen Brady is a little harsh seeing as she has actually done exactly what we would want Paul B to.

As for benefiting the tax payer - at least this way some money is being clawed back rather than the stadium lie empty

Ask an Orient fan and you will get an answer....

 

[sparkie]

In the long term they have no stadium and presumably no matchday income, or stadium non-football event revenue.

A good deal at first, which gets worse further down the line.

 

[Hotchilidog]

In addition, the only people that I think should have any portion of blame are the planners/designers from the Olympics. They knew at the time that the most likely future tenant would be a football club yet refused to make something that could easily be converted. They have wasted the money.

THIS in a nutshell. Following the successful partnership between the Commonwealth games and Manchester City there was already a good example to follow. Sadly the anti-football snobbery of Lord Coe and chums got in the way and we ended up in this situation.

If planned sensibly from the beginning this would have been a whole lot cheaper. The people who run sport in the country are just idiots.

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

Ask an Orient fan and you will get an answer....

I know that Orient wanted it too, and even said about a ground share.

But again, you can't blame West Ham for that or the amount that they are paying for the stadium. Yes, they battled it out with them and some would say that it was an unfair fight, but any fan of the club would want Paul Barber to do the same if we were in that position.

Would a better option not have been to decide a tenant prior to the stadium being built, get them to put money in as well and go from there?

The people who have caused all the problems are the planners and designers.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Ask an Orient fan and you will get an answer....

Orient could have had the stadium in it's initially planned reduced state with a capacity of 25,000 but Hearn didn't want it. His pathetic bleating once West Ham got the stadium was just face-saving bluster.

 

[saafend_seagull]

real shame they lost to man u reserves. not.

rent is clearly too low, believe southend pay their owners company 250K a year for rent...

 

[Albumen]

Absolutely scandalous. No wonder Dave thought he was a West Ham fan that time.

Ha!

 

[Wozza]

Do West Ham benefit from items such as pitch side advertising and merchandising / catering sales?

Has this been answered anywhere?

 

[beorhthelm]

Has anyone asked West Ham to explain how they think this benefits the taxpayer, or do they just let them claim it does and leave it at that?

the alternative would be nothing. you have to bear in mind no one else had a better project to use it for. Orient wanted it for free, Spurs pretended to want it, athletics cant sustain the grounds they have, a few pop concerts and motor racing was all that was left, and clearly they didnt fancy the long term prospects of those plans. cant blame West Ham for taking the opportunity, especially having seen how well a similar situation worked for Man City. i reckon they should have been made to co-tenant with Orient, but other than that i dont see what more we could get out of it. around the world there are dozens of old unused Olympic venues, so this is better. if i seem apathetic its because i made my peace along time ago, as a former London resident i bloody paid for the stadium in the first place.

 

[bhanutz]

Orient could have had the stadium in it's initially planned reduced state with a capacity of 25,000 but Hearn didn't want it. His pathetic bleating once West Ham got the stadium was just face-saving bluster.

And that is fact is it?

 

[Triggaaar]

This is what happens when a government and local authority throw VAST amounts of public cash at an enormous vanity project for 2 weeks of running and jumping, with absolutely NO viable legacy in place afterwards.

Agreed.

Distasteful as it is, West Ham have merely taken advantage of that folly and brokered the best deal they could get. Theirs was the ONLY deal on the table whereby the LLDC could at least claw back a tiny proportion of the cataclysmic amount of money they spunked on that stadium. Short of tearing the whole thing down and building flats on the site (never gonna happen, the fallout from that would be just as bad if not worse), West Ham was the only deal in town.

They could have given WH the choice of paying more or no deal. Personally I'd have preferred it to be knocked down and have flats built. As it is, that will happen at Upton Park anyway.

LLDC were over a barrel, and have been brutally f****d over accordingly. Don't blame West Ham. Blame the egos and the politicians who gave this thing the go-ahead in the first place with no plans on what to do with a 60,000 seater athletics stadium once the Games had been and gone.

I do blame the politicians.

 

[surrey jim]

Has this been answered anywhere?

not to my knowledge

 

[Hotchilidog]

And that is fact is it?

Hearn originally described the stadium as not for for football, but as soon as West Ham got the nod he then became interested and tried to groundshare and started to kick off.

However that is merely a side issue compared to the incompetent mishandling of the stadium by those responsible for it's design and legacy.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Karren Brady:

"During the negotiations, did I do the best deal I could for West Ham United? Of course I did, that's my job, but not at the expense of the taxpayer. I think what is very clear to anyone reading the agreement for the first time, is just how determined I was to protect the rights of West Ham United and our fans during the negotiations, while also ensuring it was fair to the taxpayer."

I'd still give her one though.